


Aloe Vera

by maggietenobar



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 10:53:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggietenobar/pseuds/maggietenobar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan falls in love too easily, and Grantaire has a secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aloe Vera

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Cat for betaing!

It happened like this. First there was my mother, whom I adored. She taught me to love love and poetry. She left me with a line of poetry. "The world is too much with us; late and soon." Next came Jessica, my first girlfriend, my first love, and second heartbreak. I fell fast and hard, too hard for fifteen. It scared her, me saying I wanted to marry her, so we broke up after two months. Emily and Amelia only lasted a month each. By the time I was seventeen and madly in love with Nick, my first boyfriend, I had learned better and held my tongue more. Or perhaps it was the fact that marriage wasn't legal yet that held me. Either way, it wasn't enough; I said "I love you" too soon. It continued this way, a string of heartbreaks, until I was 23, and met Grantaire.

 

Grantaire too knew what it was to lose yourself in love; he too knew what it was to push people away through unreturned feelings. When I met him, I watched his eyes follow the pull of love toward Enjolras. I understood that gaze, and I understood Grantaire. 

 

In Feburary, we hooked up for the first time. I feared it would be Enjolras' name that fell from his lips in that moment, but my fears were for naught. Though his attachment to Enjolras never wavered, he formed an attachment to me as well.

 

In the August heat, Grantaire and I laid back to front with his arms wrapped around my waist, in peaceful silence. Silence which I broke with thoughts I had been contemplating since Grantaire had told me that, at 27, he was too old to be fixed. "You're broken, but not irreparably so."

 

A pause. I was nervous about how he would react.

 

He laughed in my ear. "Thanks John Green,” he said. I let out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “But I’m not a teenager anymore.”

 

"I mean it. I thought I was irreparably broken but I was wrong. It took a while, but I'm starting to fix myself. And if you can't fix yourself that doesn't mean you're weak or a failure it just means it isn't time yet." The words were spilling out in a rush, before he could contradict. "It took years for me to realize I could be fixed and I had to get a lot more broken first and meet the right people and most of them were awful but I needed to meet them and let them eviscerate me and some were wonderful and I needed them like a salve." I rolled in his arms to face him. "You're my aloe vera."

 

I kissed him before he could protest, sucking gently at his lower lip. His tongue licked out and I opened my mouth to take him in. He glazed over my upper teeth before slipping in and I sucked hard at his tongue. He broke away, and stared at me as though trying to figure something out, before closing his eyes again and ducking down to bite at my bottom lip. 

 

"Careful, Erato," he said pulling away, and smiling a crooked smile, "your salve might sting."

 

"Ah, but I know your secret."

 

He looked at me with eyes full of questions that bordered on fear, and said, "What's my secret?"

 

"Your secret is that you care. You like to make everyone think you don't but you do, you care so much it almost kills you so you try to drown it with alcohol because you think you don't deserve to be happy because your whole life has taught you that. But you still care, so you lash out at everyone else who cares because you think if you can convince them not to care you can save them from your pain. That's why you're so awful to Enjolras; he's like you, he only understands love and liberty. You're trying to break him before the world does. But it won't work. Because Enjolras understands something you never have: love and liberty are weapons and you can fight back with them."

 

I felt a sudden rush as Grantaire rolled us over, pinning me down with his hips. He wasn't grinding down like he usually would in this position, just holding me in place with his strong dancer's legs, and staring at me. 

 

"What?" I asked, but my question was broken off by a kiss full of heat and passion.

 

It happened like this. There was Grantaire, whom I adored. And as we parted, the "I love you" fell from my lover's lips before my own for the first time.


End file.
